


Keith's Semester

by ayebibs



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Pokemon GO, Fluff and Humor, Hijinks & Shenanigans, M/M, Trans Female Pidge | Katie Holt, friendships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-10 10:19:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7840942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ayebibs/pseuds/ayebibs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Keith's university experience has been mostly quiet, but ever since he got this new job and downloaded this app, it's been a lot louder. </p><p>Not that he's complaining all that much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fire-Type

“Um, I want the bubble gum flavor tea with the little balls.”

Keith could hear the two teenagers behind the male customer snicker and suppressed a deep sigh.

“Sir, we don’t have a bubble gum flavor, but we do have twenty different flavors,” Keith said as pleasantly as he could and gestured to the mounted chalkboard with the cutely written menu, “they are all listed on the wall behind me. If you need a moment-”

“I don’t need a moment,” the customer said quickly, but then proceeded to look over the menu at an agonizing pace. “Okay, I’ll take a frozen peach tea with the little balls.” The teens snickered again.

“Uh, what do you mean by that, sir?”

“You know!” The man said impatiently, holding his fingers up to form a little circle. “Those things!”

“The tapioca pearls?”

“No.”

“The fruity boba? Or the yogurt ones?”

“No.”

Keith closed his eyes for an extra millisecond and breathed deeply in through his nose and then out through his mouth. The only thing he could think of was how lucky he was that it wasn’t busy and the only other people in line were the teenagers idly swiping at their phones.

“Those are the only additions that we offer…”

Keith prepped himself as the reddening man opened his mouth. Thankfully, Hunk popped his head out from the kitchen with a confused look on his face before the man could continue.

“No new orders, yet?” He asked before his eyes trailed to the man in front of the register and then to Keith’s desperate eyes. “Why don’t we switch for a bit? You can take over in the kitchen.”

How did he end up so lucky to have this guy as his coworker? He suppressed a sigh of relief and nearly hugged him before disappearing into the kitchen. From the back he could hear Hunk coaxing the man’s order out of him.

“Was that a frozen peach tea with tapioca pearls, the chewy black things, or the fruity ones with juice in them?”

Oh, yes, it would have made sense for him to phrase it that way. He’d have to make a mental note for the future. This was his third day on the job and he was already having trouble dealing with customers.

As it turned out, what the customer wanted was a frozen peach tea with tapioca pearls. Keith was still annoyed at the attitude that the customer gave him, but made the drink, along with two milk teas for the snickering teenagers behind him. He handed them off to Hunk who gave them out to the customers. With them gone, the shop was empty.

“Not used to working in the food industry?” Hunk asked, giving him a smile.

“No. I used to work at hardware store, but that was mostly just stocking things and moving heavy things around for the old lady who owned it.”

“Not much chance to get yelled at over where to put the duct tape, I guess?”

“Well, I still got my fair share of stupid questions,” Keith said, briefly reliving a specific encounter with a woman that probably knocked a year off his life. “A completely different patience is needed to deal with people here; I’m starting to forget why I decided to work at a café.”

“Probably for the same reason as me,” Hunk said.

Keith raised an eyebrow.

“It was the only place hiring at the mall.”

They laughed. Keith supposed that, even though he just met Hunk, of all the people he could be working with, working with him was a lucky break. As much as he complained, Balmeran Bubble Tea wasn’t so bad. Other than the annoying customers that he’d have to deal with anywhere anyway and how busy it got occasionally, it was a pretty good job.

Nestled in the corner of Voltron Space Outlets on the second floor, Balmeran Bubble Tea was a little café. There were only two tables, a loveseat, and a small counter with three stools. Being new, it had a clean, modern design. Walls were lined with wooden panels and a few green lamps hung from the ceiling, appearing to aim for an organic, fresh look.

“Just Poké Balls,” a voice huffed from the front of the store.

“Sucks for you! I got an incense and a 10km egg,” another voice said.

“What?!”

Hunk peered over the counter and waved to the two people hanging around the front of the shop.

“Hey, you guys are too loud,” Hunk called out to them. 

“We had to get the Poké Stop!” The taller of the two gestured to the front of the shop with his phone in hand. A few people were crowded around their standing sign with the daily specials on it, all of them were looking at their phones and swiping enthusiastically. 

“Lance, you can do that from inside.”

“Everyone else is in front of the store,” Lance said, folding his arms over his chest. “If I got hired here then we wouldn’t have this problem, now would we?”

“You’re just bitter,” The shorter one said.

“Shut up, Pidge.” Lance shot a brief glare at her before his eyes settled on Keith and then widened. “Oh, no way,” he groaned. “Not this guy!”

Keith raised an eyebrow and looked at him cautiously, “Uh, do I know you?”

“Spring semester? Physics lab? You got this job?” 

Keith looked at him blankly. He remembered the spring semester and he remembered taking physics lab, but he didn’t remember the lanky guy in front of him. Frankly, he was surprised himself, how he could forget someone with that much… “personality” was beyond him.

“You have a job,” Hunk pointed out. 

Lance was dressed in all black, a black button down with the sleeves rolled up and black pants, but the giveaway was the navy blue apron draped over his shoulder. Most likely, he was a waiter at Arus, the bar and grill one floor up. He could also recognize Pidge’s uniform, the green t-shirt with the name of the technology store that she worked at spoke for itself. 

“But I wanted to work here. It sucks being a waiter.”

“It’s not much better here,” Keith mumbled, still thinking about the long gone customer.

“You’re just salty that you can’t take advantage of the Poké Stop every five minutes while you’re on the job,” Pidge snickered. 

“Is it really that interesting?” Keith asked.

“What?” Hunk asked.

“Pokémon, or whatever?”

“You don’t play Pokémon Go?” Pidge asked. 

“No.”

“What?!” Lance and Pidge questioned at the same time.

“It’s not _that_ surprising,” he muttered.

“Everyone plays Pokémon Go,” Lance corrected. 

“You’re exaggerating.”

As Lance and Pidge opened their mouths to disagree, Shiro entered the shop looking exhausted and completely unready for the conversation that he wandered into. He blinked at the four crowded around the counter and looked like he was considering just backing out of the shop slowly.

“Shiro, my favorite TA!”

“Hello, Lance,” Shiro said, a weary smile on his face. 

Keith looked from Shiro to Lance, somewhat surprised that his long time friend was already familiar with him. Then again, Shiro was a hardworking teaching assistant at Garrison University that offered so many office hours it was well was pass efficient and borderline acting like a doormat. 

“Can I just get a medium coffee?” Shiro asked. 

“Coming right up!” Hunk answered before Keith could and started fixing him a cup.

“You okay, Shiro?” Keith asked, after briefly giving Pidge and Lance a slightly confused look when they suddenly became interested in their phones. Something to do with Pokémon, he was sure. 

“Just worn out, I just came from the gym and I have about fifty papers to grade.”

“Wait, the new gym at the mall? Altean Fitness?” Lance asked, looking up from his phone. Shiro nodded and Lance’s lips turned up into a smirk. “Did you take the class with the smoking hot Zumba instructor?”

Shiro paused, some color blooming on his cheeks.

“I took the Zumba class,” Shiro said, rubbing the back of his neck.

“I didn’t know you could dance,” Keith commented. 

Shiro let out a little groan, “I can’t.”

Shiro’s phone chirped and he dug it out of his pocket, Keith assumed that it he might’ve received a text message or something, but a loud tune started and he scrambled to take off the volume.

“See! Even Shiro plays Pokémon Go!” Lance said.

Keith groaned, they were on this topic again, “Not you too, Shiro.” 

“It’s fun,” Shiro said with a smile as Hunk handed him his coffee. “You’d like it. I’d love to stay and talk about Pokémon Go, but I’ve got to go set up for a lab. I’ll see you all later.” 

With that, Shiro left him to fend for himself.

“It is kind of surprising,” Hunk chimed in, “Pokémon is really popular. I mean, you walk around campus and people are stopping in the middle of their way to get to class to catch a Pikachu.” 

“A Pikachu?” Keith asked, raising an eyebrow again. He knew what Hunk was talking about when it came to the people around campus. 

“No way,” Pidge said, “You don’t know what a Pikachu is? You’ve never seen or played Pokémon?” 

He suddenly felt a bit self-conscious and rubbed the back of his neck, “Not really. I mean, I know it’s a kid’s game or show and it sounds familiar... It wasn’t really something that I watched growing up.”

Pidge tapped away at her phone before holding it up to show him a picture of a bright yellow creature with red circles on its cheeks. 

“Oh! I know what that is,” he said somewhat dismissively. Keith might not have known Pokémon that well, but that thing—Pikachu, he should say—was all over the place. It was on t-shirts and posters that he saw around the dorms. Seeing it made the name fit better and he realized that he probably knew what it was before, but he just hadn’t paid much attention to it.

“You should play,” Hunk suggested, “it’s fun. You walk around and catch Pokémon, level them up, and beat gyms with them. We’ll help you figure it out.”

“Pft, he’s on his own,” Lance muttered.

Keith rolled his eyes and then looked tentatively at Hunk before he pulled out his phone, for once feeling thankful that he had sunk his money into a smartphone rather than the basic clunker that he used to have. Generally, he kind of regretted spending the money on it when it was the price of three college textbooks.

“Alright, I’ll give it a shot.”

He opened up the store and downloaded the app. Once it finished, he opened up the app with everyone’s eyes on him. They were really way too invested in this game. He flicked through the on screen instructions given by “Professor Willow” until he was shown a screen with three different Pokémon.

“You have to choose wisely,” Pidge insisted. 

“Well, it’s not like the game. It’s not that hard to get different starters. You can hatch them or find them around. There was a bulbasaur around somewhere this morning when I got here for work.”

Keith didn’t really understand what all that meant but, looking down at the phone screen, it looked like each one was a different element or type. The turtle-looking one looked like water, the dinosaur one looked like plant, and the lizard one looked like fire. Instinctively, he tapped on the lizard one. It took him a few tries to get the throw of the Poké Ball correctly, but eventually he got the thing—the Charmander—into the damn thing. 

“Of course,” Lance muttered, “you’d pick a fire-type Pokémon over a water-type.”

“You have a Charmander too, Lance,” Hunk reminded. 

“Plus, it’s even not like fire-type Pokémon have an edge over water-type. It’s like the opposite,” Pidge added.

“I’m just saying!” Lance put his hands up. “Natural enemies.”

Keith glared at him. “Isn’t your break over yet?”

Lance opened his mouth to retort, but the looked at his phone in panic.

“Oh, shit, Pidge, we’ve been here way too long.”

“Damnit,” she muttered. “You started talking and I didn’t even get to order a bubble tea!” 

“See you later, Hunk,” he looked at Keith, “you.” Keith just looked at him unamused as Pidge waved goodbye and they scurried back to their jobs. 

“So, those are your friends?” Keith said.

Hunk let out a let out a laugh, “They’re actually really great.”

“Sure,” Keith said, attempting not sound sarcastic and failing, but Hunk didn’t seem to take offense. 

He wasn’t sure what he was going to do about that Pokémon Go app though. He had downloaded it partially due to peer pressure and partially due to hype, but he didn’t see himself using it in the future. 

For now, it was just taking up space on his phone.

* * *

Keith ran his hand through his hair as he looked over his textbook. It was only the second week of the semester, but he wanted to get ahead of the curve by reading ahead and studying hard. Of course, he told himself this every semester and, even though he wasn’t a slacker, he was prone to falling behind occasionally.

… Especially when it was a boring class like the textbook was for. He closed the book, the heavy pages making a loud sound when it shut. He looked at the clock on the wall, it was nearly eleven. It wasn’t that late for a university student, but he didn’t really feel like studying nor did he feel like heading to bed. 

His eyes traveled to his phone that was sitting face down on his desk. He picked it up and stared at the Pokémon Go app that he downloaded earlier in the day. It was probably because he didn’t grow up with Pokémon that he didn’t really get the hype. From what he gathered that day at work, it was a pretty popular game and Balmeran Bubble Tea was a Poké Stop. He also saw people around campus playing, sometimes spotting awkward collisions of students or teachers that were too busy staring at their phones. 

He opened up the app, wondering if he could also get that invested in a game. The theme started up and filled the space of his silent dorm room. A Pokémon popped up on the screen and he selected it. 

Okay, he thought, it was kind of cute. 

It looked sort of looked like a brown fox. He threw the first Poké Ball and missed spectacularly. He glared down at his phone. He threw another, this time catching it briefly before it broke out of the Poké Ball. He was not amused. He tried one last time, finger hovering over the screen in preparation before he let it down and threw it. This time he aimed properly and with three progressively smaller shakes, he captured it.

“Eevee,” he said aloud to himself looking at his phone as the Pokémon was registered in the Pokédex. 

It really was cute. 

He looked at the white sightings box at the corner. There was another one around somewhere. What did he have to do again? Walk around? There wasn’t much space in his dorm room, but he took a few steps toward his bed. Nothing popped up on his screen and he was surprised at how disappointed he was. He climbed on to his bed, holding his phone out. It didn’t make a difference. He walked back to his desk and then even further to the door. 

Still nothing. 

He glanced at his jacket hanging up a few inches away. He wasn’t going to go out to catch some pixelated creature no matter how cute it was. 

Was he?

Of course not.

He looked at his phone with a frown.

He grabbed his jacket and slipped on his boots.

Shit.

Yes, he was.

* * *

“Keith? Keith?”

Keith’s eyes snapped open. Eyes still wide, he took in his surroundings. He had fallen asleep standing up at work. 

“You okay there, buddy?” Hunk asked with a concerned expression on his face. 

Shiro looked up from the papers he was grading over at the counter.

“Uh…” Keith began unintelligibly, “yeah, I was just… up late studying for class.”

“Wow,” Hunk said, “that’s pretty admirable. It’s so early in the semester. I’ve barely touched my textbooks. 

“Don’t push yourself too hard.” Shiro was frowning at him, “It’s okay to take breaks.” 

It really wasn’t impressive… mostly because it was a lie. He hadn’t spent any real time with his textbooks. Honestly, from the moment that he stepped out of his dorm room, he was doomed. He spent a couple hours walking around the campus catching Pokémon. On its own it was a dumb idea. Even dumber when you factored in that he had class at eight in the morning and work right after.

His eyelids felt like they were a thousand pounds. He rubbed at his eyes, the light felt too bright. He definitely had a migraine coming on. 

“Guess who finally caught a Horsea!” 

Keith grimaced, that voice did not sound promising for his growing headache. Lance and Pidge entered in their uniforms. He guessed that their work schedules were overlapping. 

The moment Lance laid eyes on him his mouth dropped open ready to say something annoying, but he was instantly hushed by Pidge, who held up a finger.

“Nope! Not before I get bubble tea,” she said sternly and then turned to look at Keith with a grin. She placed her simple order, a frozen coconut drink with tapioca pearls. 

“And I’ll have a mango, passionfruit, and guava tea with yogurt and mango boba. With extra ice.” 

Keith scrunched up his face at the order while Lance shot him a grin, of course his order was long and specific.

“Why aren’t I surprised?” He asked. 

“Because I look like I have great taste, even in drinks,” Lance answered without missing a beat. 

“Wasn’t really what I was thinking.”

“Hey, did you play Pokémon Go after we left?” Pidge asked, taking a sip of the drink that Hunk made for her.

Keith hesitated. Admitting that he played for hours the night before and that morning didn’t seem very socially acceptable. Then again, they were the ones that had gotten him to download the app in the first place…

“Yeah, I caught a few,” he said vaguely.

“Oh, yeah? What’d you catch?” Hunk asked as he prepped Lance’s drink. 

“A couple Pidgeys, a few Rattatas, and, uh, some Eevees. Some other things too, but I don’t really remember their names.”

“Hey, then let’s see, pull up your Pokémon list,” Pidge suggested.

Keith started the app as Hunk passed Lance’s drink to him and stood next to him. 

“Wow,” Hunk said at his first glance at Keith’s phone.

“What?” Lance asked. 

“You caught a lot of Eevees in one night.”

“Let me see!” Pidge insisted.

Keith turned the phone so that Pidge and Lance could see it. Their eyes went wide. 

“Dude,” Lance said. “You caught, like,” he counted in a quiet murmur, having to swipe up to finish counting all, “fourteen Eevees. What the hell?” 

“You nicknamed every one of them, too,” Hunk said.

“One of them is named Pyro!” Pidge pointed out. “It’s going to evolve into a Flareon.”

“What’s a Flareon?”

“How the hell did you catch fourteen Eevees in one night?” Lance was still stuck on that. “Are there even that many in the area? How long did that take you?”

“They’re pretty much everywhere.” That was true, but at this point Keith was still reluctant to admit that he had wandered around Garrison University until he could barely keep his eyes open. 

“You spent last night hunting for Pokémon, didn’t you?” Hunk asked.

Lance let out laugh. “No way! You didn’t even know about it until yesterday and now you’re obsessed?”

Keith could feel his cheeks burning. 

“It’s fun, okay?”

“You should trade some of them in, you don’t need all of them,” Pidge said. “Drop the ones with the lowest CP.”

Keith looked down at his phone. He had gone through the trouble of nicknaming all of them. He didn’t really want to part with them.

“Maybe later,” he settled on. If he ran out of space, maybe then. 

Shiro, who had decided to stay out of the conversation to focus on his work, stood up and, thankfully, jarred their conversation.

“Going to another Zumba lesson?” Hunk asked innocently, although Shiro immediately looked embarrassed. It wasn’t like his plain white t-shirt and joggers looked inconspicuous, if he was trying to hide it. He came dressed for the gym rather than changing there. 

“Yeah, it starts in fifteen,” he confirmed. “I’ll see you all later.” He clearly wasn’t in the mood to discuss it any further. 

“We should go to a class,” Lance said once Shiro had left.

“What brought that on?” Hunk asked.

“Um, didn’t you hear me yesterday? ‘Smoking hot Zumba instructor?’ Also, have you seen Shiro? Aren’t you curious to see how he maintains,” Lance made a vague gesture, “all of that?”

“It’s pretty much just weight training and jogging,” Keith supplied, raising an eyebrow. He was familiar with Shiro’s workout routine. It wasn’t uncommon for them to spot each other. Lance didn’t seem to listen.

“Actually, it seems like fun!” Pidge agreed. “We should all go!” She pulled up her phone looking at the class schedules. “Oh, our breaks almost over, but there’s a class on Sunday at ten!” She and Lance got ready to leave. “We’ll see you guys then!”

Wait. What? 

“Guys?”

He looked to Pidge, but she and Lance were already waving goodbye and leaving. 

He was not expecting an invite. He didn’t really _want_ an invite. 

He looked to Hunk for an explanation of what just happened, but he was already looking at him with a knowing smile.

“Just go along with it, man.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, I know in this kind of alternate universe it's really a reach for a character to not be very familiar with Pokemon, but bear with me please. 
> 
> I should also mention that this is a more introductory and Pokémon Go heavy chapter, but not all will be! 
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> (Come talk to me about Voltron: [tumblr](ayebibs.tumblr.com))


	2. Team Valor

Keith should have just stayed home. 

He could have read through the assigned chapters for his courses. Maybe cleaned his bike, watched some television or done some laundry. There was no reason that he had to come today. It was Sunday, after all. He had better things to do. 

Well, he could think about that as much as he wanted, but his laundry list of activities wouldn’t change the fact that he was standing in Altean Fitness’ Zumba studio.

At Altean Fitness bright lights were everywhere and there were silver and pastel purple accents on the walls. It was a big gym, spanning two floors of the mall. The first harboring the swimming pool and weights and the second housing cardio machines and the fitness studios. Altean Fitness was a relatively new chain, but it was becoming an increasingly popular choice over the others. He could see why. It certainly outdid the campus’ gym that had an incomplete set of weights and never any open treadmills.

He huffed softly to himself as he stood with Hunk, Pidge, and Lance and buried his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants. He felt uncomfortable around them, they were all familiar with each other, but he was just the guy who worked at the bubble tea café. 

“Have you ever gone to a Zumba class?” Hunk asked, noticing his discomfort.

“Not really,” he admitted.

“What about a dance class?”

“Nope.” 

"Are you nervous?" Lance was egging him on. Keith only returned it with a frown. "Can't dance?"

"Can you?" Keith shot back. 

"Of course I can," Lance said dismissively.

“That’s yet to be proven,” he muttered.

Lance looked much more prepared than he was. His getup reminded him of the way those colorful figures in promotional videos for those dancing video games dressed. He was wearing a crop top and joggers with a plaid shirt tied around his waist. When he saw him, he nearly rolled his eyes. In all honestly, he wasn’t one to talk about extraneous clothing when he wore a jacket throughout the summer. It wasn’t all bad—he could appreciate the crop top that exposed just a few inches of his brown skin—but that plaid shirt was really annoying him. It was definitely going to loosen and fall down as soon as the class started. 

So impractical. 

He exhaled, causing Pidge to turn and look at him.

"Don't worry about it, too much," Pidge said, giving him a small, reassuring pat on the shoulder. "It's for fun!"

Keith raised an eyebrow. Sure it was for fun, but he wasn't completely sure how he felt about tripping over his two left feet in front of an audience. He was athletic, but having a sense of rhythm was a completely different thing.

He felt relieved when Shiro entered.

“Oh? You all decided to come for a class?” He asked pleasantly.

"We were curious since you started going to them, it seems like fun," Pidge explained.

"You've seen the Zumba instructor," Lance said, on a different note.

“Well, I’ve gotta warn you, the classes are intense.”

“Hey, now,” a voice started, startling them, “don’t scare them out of my classes, Shiro!” 

“Your classes are challenging, Allura.”

Looking at her, Keith could definitely see what Lance was talking about. Dark brown skin offset by long, wavy white hair pulled up into a ponytail, and blue eyes: she was beautiful. 

“Nonsense, look how well you’ve been doing!”

"I don't know how you can say that after you've seen me dance."

"Oh, you're not that bad!" 

"You're just being kind," he said.

"I'm not, I'm not. You're so much better than when you started."

"That doesn't mean very much." Shiro laughed. 

“Don’t sell yourself short,” she hummed. 

She smiled and gave them a little wave before going to stand in front of the class. 

"Alright, are we ready everyone?" She called out with a grin. She already seemed to be moving to a silent beat, her hips swaying back and forth and lightly bouncing from foot to foot. "Like always, we're going to start with some stretching before we move into the main program."

A catchy song started up and it was slower than Keith expected, but he wasn't complaining. He could copy the moves that she was making with ease. Throwing an arm into the air, reaching to touch his toes, stepping backwards and then forwards to a beat. 

That much he could do. 

What happened next was a totally different story.

The acceleration happened much quicker than he anticipated when the song suddenly changed. Slow, steady beats morphed into a faster tempo. Within seconds he was tripping over his own two feet and feeling embarrassed as he tried to shimmy in circle as well as the people in front of him. 

Apparently, his athleticism didn’t translate from his normal regime to dance.

He caught a few glances of Shiro every time there was a move that made them switch directions. His eyes were trained on Allura and, even though he said he couldn’t dance, he was able to keep up with the pace of the class. Keith attributed this to the amount of classes that Shiro attended. Forget about dancing, Keith knew Shiro for years, but couldn’t even recall seeing him tap his foot to a beat.

Hunk was doing well too and, even though Pidge was struggling more than the others, she was holding her own. 

Was he the only person that couldn't dance?

Face red, he looked over at Lance, feeling slightly annoyed to find him doing well. He copied her movements flawlessly. Not only was he able to move his hips to the rhythm, but unlike most of the class who had their eyebrows knitted together in confusion, he look confident doing it too. 

He, on the other hand, was having difficulty trying to coordinated his upper body with lower body at the same time. He was supposed to wave his hands in the air while moving his legs how?

He took another look at Lance who was dancing next to him, but this time he got caught. Lance met his eyes as he executed a body roll much more smoothly than he did. Lance stuck out his tongue and Keith glared back at him. 

That little shit.

His gaze snapped back to Allura, who was performing a completely new sequence, with renewed determination to crush the class.

Before he could get the hang of it, it all went to hell. 

Keith wasn't sure exactly what happened. Maybe he didn’t step to the left fast enough. Maybe Pidge took too many steps and ran into Lance. 

Either way there was a loud grunt that could be heard over the music, the sound of two bodies colliding and then someone clutching at the back of his t-shirt with enough force that he was propelled downward. His hands only moved fast enough to keep his face from an unfortunate collision with the hard black mats of the dance studio. 

The collective weight of Lance and Pidge knocked the breath out of him. He tried to separate himself from the floor, but Lance and Pidge were still struggling to regain their balance. He looked at the rest of the class and just felt lucky that they hadn't stopped. The music was still blaring out of the speakers and, thanks to Allura who only shot them a worried look before continuing with the rigorous routine, no one had the time to stop and stare at them for very long.

Lance’s arm dug into his side as he squirmed above him in an attempt to separate their bodies. Keith grunted and tried to move his legs in an attempt to free himself, but Lance made a pained nose. 

"Get off," he hissed at him. 

"Tell Pidge that," he hissed back. 

“I’m off, I’m off!” Pidge said when she finally made it back onto her feet. 

Hunk extended a hand to him, pulling him to his feet. Keith stood still for a moment, pondering whether he should just leave, but Pidge and Lance tried to assimilate back into the class. Hunk nodded his head over to them, suggesting he continue. Keith sighed and did his best to get back into the class.

The results were about the same as before, Keith could barely keep up. However, as the class went on, Allura repeated some of the moves and he no longer felt like he was completely lost.

The class ended without any more interruptions. Maybe that was because Keith decided to keep a safer distance away from Lance, the two of them occasionally throwing glares at each other.

Adding salt to the wound, Allura approached them with a sympathetic smile. 

"Did you like the class?"

"It was great!" Hunk responded enthusiastically. "You know, aside from those three crashing into each other."

"I thought you said could dance,” Keith spat.

"Pidge is the one who crashed into me," Lance gestured to the short girl next to him who glared at him, folded her arms over her chest, and muttered something along the lines of “bite me” under her breath. "Don't blame me, Mr. Three Steps Behind."

Keith opened his mouth to retort, but Lance was already shifting gears. He turned to look at Allura mustering up his best smoulder—if that was what that look was supposed to be.

“I could use a couple of private lessons, though.”

Keith looked at Hunk over Lance’s shoulder, giving him an “is this guy serious?” look. Hunk only laughed and shrugged. Shiro sighed and folded his arms over his chest and Pidge raised an eyebrow. 

Allura laughed, polite and awkward, “As much as you could benefit from them—” Pidge snorted, “—I don’t think I have any time for any personal training.”

“Teach a lot of classes?”

“No,” Allura said, waving a dismissive hand in the air, “this is just something I do fun. I actually run Altean Fitness.”

"Oh?" Lance said, "Like this one?"

Allura smiled politely, "No, the franchise."

Collectively, their eyes widened and their jaws dropped. 

“You mean, like, all of them?”

“Mhm.” 

Lance's mouth opened and closed as he floundered for a response. Lance still hadn't recovered even after Allura's excused herself with a few words about how she hoped that their misstep won't keep them from coming again and taking more Zumba lessons. Pidge immediately began laughing.

"That was embarrassing,” she said.

Keith grinned, but Lance didn’t give him a chance to open his mouth.

"Screw you."

* * *

After Keith's finished his homework, he looked at his phone. It wasn't too late yet. He was reminded of the mistake he made last time and the splitting headache that came from a lack of sleep. He'd be better this time, he assured himself, picking up his phone and heading out the door.

It was only the middle of September, but at that time of the night it was chilly.

He wasn't outside for five minutes when he spotted Lance over by the memorial bench for some sorority girl who past away in the 1980s. It was a Poké Stop. When he looked at his phone he realized that Pokémon Go didn't get the message. 

"Pink Bench" it read. Not quite reverent. 

"Hey," he greeted, waving a hand at Lance who was staring intently at his phone. 

“Beginning your all-night hunt for Pokémon?” Lance asked. 

“I’m only going to make that mistake once. I have class at eight in the morning tomorrow.”

“You only have yourself to blame that,” Lance scoffed.

Keith rolled his eyes, “It’s Bioethics, it was the only course that fulfilled a general requirement that I need this semester.”

“You have the eighty year old professor with a goatee?”

“Yeah. Did you take the class?”

“Yup,” Lance made a face, “He’s a hardass, good luck with that.”

He didn’t need Lance to tell him that the professor was hardass, the lecturer had already proved that ten times over. Keith was tempted to ask for pointers, but Lance’s hostility was preventing him from sucking up his pride.

“Biology major? Premed?”

“Yeah with a psychology minor? Are you premed too?”

“No,” Lance looked up from his phone, surprised. Keith wasn’t sure why, he could never see himself as a doctor. “Chemistry.”

“Huh,” Lance said.

They lapsed into silence when something on Lance’s phone caught his attention.

“Catch anything interesting?” he asked conversationally.

"Shh!" Lance hushed. Keith frowned, wondering why he even bothered to greet him in the first place. "I got to catch this Ekans."

"The what?"

"If you're going to play Pokemon Go you gotta learn the names eventually," Lance said, not bothering to take his eyes off his phone. Keith peered over at Lance’s phone to observe as Lance threw a Poké Ball at the purple snake only to have it break out a second later.

"I don't have one of those yet either," he said, looking at his phone. Nothing popped up on his screen yet.

"Good for you."

"What's your problem?" Keith asked with a sigh. At this point he wasn't even mad anymore, just curious.

Sometime over the last week or so he's remembered Lance's face. Not much about whatever transpired in Physics lab, but the vague memory of his around campus and the remembrance of a question that he asked in one of their lectures together. 

"Nothing," Lance said, looking up briefly from his phone. "I have no problem."

"It doesn't sound like you have 'no problem.'"

"Well, I don't. Anyway, I'm heading back to my dorm, don't stay up too late catching Eevees." Lance said throwing a dismissive hand over his shoulder as he walked away leaving a frown on Keith's face.

Honestly, what did he do to that guy?

* * *

"Hey, what level are you on?" Pidge asked while she and Lance were on their break. They always came around, taking up a place at the counter and swiping for the Poké Stop every few minutes, not that Keith cared too much. Their breaks generally coincided with their slower periods. 

“Level nine.”

“That was fast,” Hunk said.

“You don’t really get the whole ‘good things in moderation’ thing, do you?” Lance asked. 

The proper answer to that was: “No, no I don’t.”

But there was no way in hell that Keith was going to say that and so he just glared at him.

“Did you join a team yet?” Pidge asked. 

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I did."

"Which team?" Hunk asked. 

"Team Valor."

"Of course!" Lance said, making Hunk frown at him.

"What are you talking about?" he asked. "You're not even on Team Mystic, you're on Instinct."

"Yes, but I'd side with Mystic over Valor."

"I just picked it because it was red," Keith said with a shrug. "You're really reaching for reasons to hate me now aren't you?"

"Don't worry, you provide enough material," Lance said.

"You want to say to my face?" Keith asked glaring at him over the counter

"I just said it your face!" Lance said crowding his space. 

They didn't realize that they were so close that their foreheads were practically touching until Allura walked in and chuckled softly at them.

"Am I interrupting something?" They pulled away looking in opposite directions, arms folded across their chests.

“Children,” Pidge said, rolling her eyes.

“Says the eighteen year old,” Lance muttered.

“This eighteen year old is in the same graduating class as you, so who’s the real loser here?”

"Would you like something to drink?" Hunk asked after giving a worried glance over to Lance and Keith. 

"You're looking beautiful today," Lance commented. 

"I do look better when I'm not in my gym clothes," she said with a pronounced sigh.

Suddenly, Pidge’s hand reached out to grip the sleeve of Lance’s jacket. Lance looked down at her with raised eyebrows, not even needing to voice his confusion.

“Our gym was overtaken. It’s a Mystic gym now.”

“Wait, what?”

“I thought you were cool with Team Mystic,” Hunk said with a grin on his face. 

“Just because you are. Does not mean that I appreciate my gym being taken over.”

Allura looked at him with a raised eyebrow. 

"Your gym?" she questioned. "It was believe that it was my gym until Shiro kicked me out fifteen minutes ago. "

Keith had a question about how she knew that it was Shiro that booted her from the gym, but the conversation about Pokémon continued before he ask. 

"Wait, what?" Lance asked again, jaw slack when he turned to look at her. "You play Pokémon Go?"

"Why wouldn't I?" Allura asked, innocently tucking loose strands behind her ear. She gave Keith a small smile and thumbs up, “Team Valor.”

Lance looked less than amused.

"I don't know why you expected to stay gym leader when there's so much traffic at the mall," Pidge said shaking her head. 

"There were four awesome Pokémon left there!"

"It took one Vulpix with high combat power."

"You've got to be kidding me," Lance said hopping to his feet. "I'm taking that gym back."

"You have, like, five minutes left of your break," Keith pointed out. He was counting the moments until Lance would return to where he came from. 

"What are you an alarm clock?" Lance snapped.

"Sooner you get out of here, the better."

Lance flipped him off. 

"Just for that I'm coming back tomorrow."

"Of course you will," Keith mumbled under his breath as he and Pidge made for the door.

“And I’m going to order the most complicated drink ever!” Lance called over his shoulder. 

Keith groaned and folded his arms over his chest. 

“What is his deal?” he asked Hunk.

“Hm,” Hunk glanced towards the shop’s exist where Lance and Pidge were no longer visible, “I don’t really know.”

“You think he just took a look at my face and decided to hate me?”

“He’s not petty like that.” Keith sent him a skeptical look. “I don’t think he hates you either.”

“I don’t want to see how he annoys people that he does hate.”

“Don’t worry, you two will warm up to each other.”

Keith scoffed, “Yeah, okay, we’ll see about that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who left kudos and comments on the first chapter! I really, really appreciate them!
> 
> This chapter was painful to write and that’s why it took forever. I'm going to make an effort to post chapters more frequently. I think I was taking this is a bit too seriously, but I’m just gonna call it a fun fanfic and that’s it. Can we agree to that? Great. 
> 
> Some housekeeping things: This is the second chapter out of thirteen chapters (twelve chapters and a short epilogue). It’s subject to change, it'll most likely change if the new season comes out before I finish and messes with the view/direction I have for this series, but that’s about what you can expect. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> (Come talk to me about Voltron: [tumblr](ayebibs.tumblr.com))


	3. Pidgey

As compared to other college students, Keith wouldn’t consider himself a late riser, but when his phone went off at five in the morning, it wasn’t as if he was completely thrilled. He groaned, rolling over and groping blindly for his phone. He squinted the best he could to read the name on the too bright screen, but his vision was too blurry from sleep to make it out.

“Hello?” Keith groaned, rubbing violently at his eyes.

“Keith! I need your help!”

Keith sat up immediately.

“Pidge? What’s going-?” 

“It’s an emergency!” Pidge insisted. 

“What’s…” Keith searched for the right words. “Do you need to call the police? What do you mean it’s an emergency?”

“Can you just come?”

Keith was already climbing out of bed to pull on a sweater and slip on his boots. Pidge relayed her quad, building, and room number. He jogged across campus which he had never seen so empty and quiet. The only other person that he spotted was someone battling with a hangover as they trekked across the campus in disheveled clothing. He didn’t think that he’d ever been out on campus this early in the morning. 

He arrived at Pidge’s dorm room to find that Lance and Hunk, who was on his hand and knees and peering under Pidge’s bed, were already there. They were both still in their pajamas. Hunk in some patterned orange pajama pants and Lance in a robe. Lance looked like Keith felt, still sleepy, but he was still looking around the room. Lance lifted up a sweater on Pidge’s floor to look under it. Keith took a quick look around and observed the relative lack of signs of an emergency. He looked to Pidge with a raised eyebrow.

“What’s going on?” he asked cautiously.

“Pidge lost Rover,” Hunk said, his head still ducked underneath her bed.

“Rover?” Keith asked. 

“My hamster,” Pidge supplied, dropping one of her sneakers from her hands after she stuck her hand in and determined that it was empty. She picked up a rain boot next, holding it up to peer inside of it. 

“Are we allowed to keep hamsters in the dorms?” Keith asked, taking a step forward. He froze where he stood when Pidge held out her hand and made a high pitched, pained noise. 

“Watch where you step! If you’re not careful you’ll step on him!”

Keith withdrew his foot and took a careful look around before taking a step forward. 

“Do you think that maybe Rover got out of the room?” Keith asked. He dropped to his knees to inspect the space between the floor and the bottom edge of the door. It looked like there was enough space for a hamster to shimmy through.

Pidge froze before bending down to analyze the crack. 

“Oh… no…” she groaned. She raised a hand to her forehead to grasp at her bangs. “If he got out he could be anywhere in building. He could be in someone else’s room.”

“Good job sending her into a panic,” Lance mumbled.

Keith glared at him, “It’s an option to consider, if we consider that Rover’s out there we can at least go and check.”

“That’s a good idea,” Hunk agreed. “I can stay here and check. You three go check outside in the hall.” 

“Okay, we need to find him,” Pidge said when the three of them stepped into the hallway.

“Need to find who?”

The three of them jumped and turned around to find a guy with a languid expression on his face.

Pidge opened her mouth to speak, but Lance slapped his hand over her mouth and grinned at Rolo who arched an eyebrow and folded his arms over his chest. 

“Rolo! My favorite RA! She means ‘them.’ What she means is that she’s looking for fruit flies. For extra credit. For, you know, that lab where you have to collect fruit flies for extra credit.”

That sounded convincing, Keith thought to himself, arching an eyebrow right along with Rolo. 

“In the dorm hallways? Instead of, I don’t know, setting out an apple and waiting? At five in the morning?”

“You and me both know that dorm hallways are a mess and it’s best to get an early start on these things.”

“Fair enough,” Rolo said with a uninterested shrug. He held up a dismissive hand and continued on his way.

Lance and Pidge would later explain that it was strange to see Rolo at that time of the morning. He was a friendly guy, but a pretty hands off resident assistant. Their best guess was that a freshman was having a hard time and he was on call. 

“Ugh!” Lance suddenly pulled his hand away from Pidge’s mouth and wiped it on his pants. “What the hell, Pidge? Why’d you lick me? It’s not like you’re supposed to go around blurting your law breaking to the RAs.”

“It’s not illegal, Lance,” she hissed. “It’s just against the rules.”

“Whatever, you go back and check the other side of the building. We’ll check on this side. If he’s not there then we’ll check again.”

Pidge’s eyebrows knitted together in worry and Keith frowned. He barely knew her, but somehow, in addition, to being roped up in the situation, he felt bad for her. He even felt guilty that he couldn’t do more than what he was doing. 

“Relax,” Lance said, Keith didn’t think it sounded very convincing until he followed it up with a gentler, “We’re gonna find Rover. We just need to keep looking.” 

Pidge looked at him skeptically, but then sighed and nodded. “Alright, I’m going to go check the otherside.”

Keith and Lance made it the other end of the hallway when Keith saw a flash of silver fur in front of Lance’s shoe. 

“Wait!” Keith yelled, trying to catch his attention before Lance put his foot down. Without thinking, one of his hands darted out to shove Lance against a wall to keep his foot from coming down on the tiny creature. Lance glared at him, but Keith figured it was worth it. Not only because he couldn’t imagine telling Pidge that Lance had stepped on her pet. 

Lance stopped glaring the moment that he spotted the tiny creature on the ground and Keith dropped to his knees to try to grab the silver, little animal, but hesitated and it ran out of his grasp. Luckily, Lance was fast enough to scoop him up between his hands. He held him up to his face and gave him a stern look. 

“What the hell, buddy?” Lance asked Rover, “Pidge’s been looking for you everywhere.” Keith couldn’t help but smile softly. Lance was more endearing talking to a hamster than to people. 

“You’ve never seen Pidge’s hamster before, right?” Lance asked him. He held out the small rodent carefully cradling it between his hands and Keith instinctively took a step backwards. Lance arched an eyebrow and Keith floundered for a response. 

It wasn’t like he had a phobia of rodents or even that was really scared of them. They just… unsettled him.

“Are you afraid of hamsters?” Lance asked.

“No,” Keith scoffed.

Lance held out Rover again and Keith took another step back without thinking about it. Lance looked at him skeptically and took a step forward and Keith took another step back.

Okay, maybe he was a little afraid, but more frightening was the smirk on Lance’s face. 

“So, this is what you’re afraid of.” 

Keith should have known that spending the next ten minutes avoiding Lance’s hands that safely cradled the hamster was inevitable.

“It’s so cute, how can you be afraid of something so little?”

Keith wanted to explain that its size was part of the problem. Hamsters were cute when they were a safe distance away from him, but he didn’t want to think of the tiny thing crawling up his pant leg. He was smart enough to know that any explanation would just open him up to more ridicule and settled for glaring at him. 

Wait until he found something small and insignificant that Lance was mildly afraid of.

“No, really though,” Lance said more seriously. 

“What?”

“There’s really nothing to be afraid of.”

“Is saying that supposed to make me not afraid?”

“It’s a cute, tiny hamster.”

Keith stared back at him unamused and Lance let out a loud, dramatic sigh. 

“Look,” he said, “just pet him. I’ll hold him so he doesn’t move.” 

Keith moved to step back again, but his back was already pressed against the wall of the hallway. This time when Lance stepped forward with the little hamster in his hands he had nowhere to run. Lance cradled Rover in his hands and held him out between them. 

“Since he’s small, pet him with your index and middle finger down his back,” Lance instructed. Keith frowned at him. He wasn’t so afraid that this was torture, but having Lance and the hamster so close to him was making his heart pound faster than normal. “Go ahead, I’ll wait.” There was no more teasing, he was being genuine and patient now. 

Keith’s eyes flickered from Lance’s down to Rover. He raised a hand hesitantly, but it stopped in the middle of the air. He felt Lance’s anticipatory gaze on him and it finally prompted him to gently bring his fingers down and stroke the hamster’s soft, silver fur.

“See?” Lance grinned. “You’re still alive.”

“Now why don’t you hold him?”

“That’s too many steps for one day.”

“Hold both your hands out. You have to hold him with two because there are no surfaces under us and you don’t want him jumping or falling,” Lance continued.

Then, before he knew it, he was cradling Rover in his hands. The tiny movements of the little animal in his hands initially made him antsy and nervous, but the more he held him, the easier it became. Keith held up Rover to eye level. He had never denied it before, but getting over his mild fear really made him seem cuter. 

Although there was still one matter that needed to be acknowledged. 

“You know, you don’t have to be standing so close anymore,” Keith said. “We have to get back to Pidge so she won’t be freaking out anymore.”

“Pft,” Lance scoffed and backed up, defensive hands in the air. “Please, I was just trying to help you get over your fear.”

“How kind.” Keith said back sarcastically, even though he knew that it really was kind of him. 

“Yeah, next time I’m letting someone help you get over your fears the way that my sister got me to conquer my fear of dogs,” Lance said and walked ahead of him towards Pidge’s room.

Keith grinned. He kind of wanted to hear that story.

* * *

“Why are you so stubborn?” Keith snapped through gritted teeth. 

“I’m not stubborn,” Lance hissed back. “I’m just not gonna let you be the gym leader.”

“How is that not stubborn?!”

It had been nearly twenty minutes since they took their breaks and every minute was spent in front of the random abstract sculpture in mall that was, more importantly, the same site as a Pokémon Go gym. Lance had caught him tapping at his phone while trying to knock a Mystic trainer out of the gym. Lance knocked him out the gym the gym the second that he succeeded. Of course since Lance had made a show of it, Keith wasn’t going to stand for it.

And that was how they came to be standing in the middle of the mall, bickering away. A few mothers gave them disapproving stares, but they paid no mind to them. 

Keith glared at his phone as he watched the red tower drop down only to come back as a yellow one. Immediately he went to click on it, tapping as fast as it could on the screen. Lance moved a hand to try to interfere with it, but Keith dodged, holding his phone as far away from the other man as possible. It didn’t take long for the red tower to reemerge. 

Lance was at his phone again and Keith groaned. Their breaks were nearly over and he had spent the entirety of it with Lance and trying to one up him. Hell, if he was going to leave him as the gym leader.

“You’re break is almost over, you’re going to get fired and deserve it.”

“I don’t care, I’m not leaving this a Valor gym.”

“Your funeral.”

“Not like your break isn’t almost over too.”

In the end, they both returned to work ten minutes after their break ended. Keith received some disappointed and annoyed words from Hunk. Lance claimed that he returned without any penalty, but Pidge was nice enough to relay that Lance got scolded in front of the cute girl that he worked with. So, really, there were no winners. 

By the time that they both left for home that day, it was a Mystic gym. 

It may or may not have had something to do with Hunk.

* * *

Keith dropped his bag down on the last empty table in the library and he could feel people seething at him. It wasn’t like he could blame them. If there were groups, seeing one person take up a table could be frustrating, but it wasn’t like he wanted to sit there. The first round of exams were coming up soon and that meant the library would be start to be congested now until the end of the semester. That meant even the study cubicles that normally had a few free seats would be taken up. How he got a table to himself was a miracle on its own. A group of students left the moment he passed by and he jumped at the only empty table. 

A group of sorority girls were standing next to a bookcase and staring him down. They were hoping that he’d get up and move. If he were more sociable and there were less of them, he’d offer to share the table, but it’d be too crowded and awkward. Not that having a horde of girls glaring at you over a table wasn’t awkward. He stared down at one of his textbooks and did his best to concentrate, but to no avail. Were they really just going to stand there and try to make him feel guilty?

If they sat down, Keith knew they’d be loud and cause a commotion. That was how groups at the library always were. Rather than studying or doing their work, they’d talk about television or sports or gossip about how one person did something to the other person or just nothing in particular and clog up the library with noise. Sure, he was taking up a lot of space, but if they sat down they’d be infinitely more annoying.

It wasn’t like Keith wanted to be sitting at the table in the first place. It was uncomfortable to be the only one sitting there with several other empty seats. That’s what he got for being a loner and going to library by himself.

“Hey, Keith!” Pidge’s voice cut through his annoyed thoughts. Hunk and Lance were with her.

“I texted you, but you didn’t answer,” Hunk said. Keith looked at his phone that was on silent to find that Hunk had indeed texted him about potentially meeting up in the library to study together. “What are you studying for?”

“Organic Chemistry.”

“That’s always fun,” Lance said, sarcasm dripping from every word. “I took that last semester. I hated every second of it.”

“I don’t think it’s so bad,” Keith said honestly.

Lance sighed, “Of course you don’t.” 

The three of the sat down at the table and Keith watched the animosity from the group of girls’ face drain before they dispersed to find another place to sit.

"What are you guys studying for?" Keith asked and Pidge launched into a laundry list of things that she needed to so and study for. Hunk, Keith, and Lance stared at he as she jumped from projects to her upcoming exams to the assignments that were due any day now. "When are you supposed to sleep?" Keith asked.

"Sleep, what's that?" She asked.

"I don't think you've had more than a two hour nap in the past three days," Hunk said, part of him sounded impressed and the other sounded concerned.

"Sleep is for the weak," she said. 

"You're going to need to take a break some time," Keith added in, surprised to find himself worried as well. 

"I don't think she could sleep if she tried," Lance said giving her a cautious look. "I'm pretty sure her blood is seventy-five percent caffeine at this point."

"It's like sixty percent. Oh!" Pidge exclaimed suddenly. She pulled her bag in front of her and dug into it. "Speaking of coffee," she pulled out a glass bottle of iced coffee and handed it to him. Keith stared down at the still cold beverage in his hands and then looked up at her with an arched brow. "For finding Rover. I would have been in deep shit if you didn't wake up so early and help me find him."

Keith opened his mouth to tell her that it was no big deal, even though the gesture made him feel kind of warm inside, but Lance interrupted him. 

"Uh, what about me?"

"What you mean what about you?" Pidge asked. "You would've stepped on him if Keith hadn't pushed you into the wall."

"He didn't do it on purpose," Hunk said coming to Lance's defense.

"I told you sorry and I didn't step on him."

"You've bummed off my pizza, like, twice this week!" Pidge said. 

“Wasn’t like you were gonna eat a whole pie by yourself!”

"Shh!" The sound of the librarian hushing them was loud enough to make the four of them jump. For a second they all looked at each other guiltily before breaking out into big grins. 

After today, Keith would be a little more empathetic to loud groups in the library.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it’s been a month and change, but I haven’t abandoned this. I’ve been a bit busy lately and didn’t get a chance to sit and write… Still, I hope you enjoyed the chapter even though it’s so late!
> 
> Thank you for the comments and kudos on the last chapter, I really appreciate them!
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> ([tumblr](ayebibs.tumblr.com))


End file.
